clarence thomas

Ricky Woodie
Ehtics
Media portfolio
2 October 2007

Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas is a judge under the Supreme Court and was elected under the first president Bush. He has served on the bench ever since elected, and over the years has been under a lot of scrutiny for being accused of being a traitor to the black people. Thomas has been know for being against any privileges that help better blacks, such as affirmative action and believes they should be shut down. It is believed once he used these laws to climb the later for himself so to speak; he pulled it up from other African Americans. In the 80s he switched parties and became a republican and that is when he preached that civil rights were wrong and that blacks required special treatment to succeed. This relates a great deal to Johnson chapter three when he talks about privileges and capitalism. Here Clarence says that affirmative action and civil rights made it hard for him to find a job because it was believed that being black got him his degree.
In the interview on 60 minutes Thomas talks about his history and shows that the color of his skin did not affect the work he put in to get his degree. He explains that he grew up very poor in the segregated south and as a kid served as a slave for his grandfather by performing labor work in the fields. Thomas says how he was always at the segregated library was an honor student at holy cross, and was at the top of his class. He went to college at Yale where he did very well, but was told his benefits were tarnished because he was black. After he said it was very hard to find a job because his degree was “discounted”. People thought he only got that degree because he was black.
In my opinion I agree with him to an extent. I do feel that civil rights such as affirmative action took away from the fact that he earned his degree on his own, but there still are white privileges out there and there needs to be some way to help minorities out of oppression.